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Alyssa Petrino

ELD-308

Dialogue Lesson Reflection

Chicken Little was a lesson I co-taught in Mrs. MacNamara’s fourth grade classroom on

Thursday, March 10th. The lesson focused on the rules of dialogue and how to incorporate these

rules into a piece of writing. The lesson began by asking students what three good things all good

stories have. The students had learned about these three things previously in the year. However,

the students had difficulty recalling these three things and there was some confusion. As the

students raised their hands and were called upon, their ideas of these three good things were

discussed. The students began to recall the three good things all good stories have.

Next, the students were asked if they knew what dialogue was and were able to define

dialogue successfully. Chicken Little by Steven Kellogg was then read to the class. The students

were asked to look for dialogue and to pay attention to what they were noticing. After reading

Chicken Little by Steven Kellogg, the students then discussed with their neighbors what they

were noticing about dialogue. The students pointed out some really important parts of dialogue

(Ex: words to use other than said). This led into the three rules of dialogue that we were going to

discuss during the lesson.

Then, as a class, the students pointed out the rules of a dialogue from a passage from

Chicken Little. The students were able to identify the rules of dialogue in the passage and

justified their answers when asked to explain their reasoning. A second passage from Chicken

Little was presented to the students, and as a class the students filled in the missing dialogue. At

first, the students were placing commas and periods before the quotation marks. However, the
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book used exclamation points, so we guided students towards the author’s reasoning. We asked

students why they should use explanation points instead of either a comma or period. They were

able to explain the use of exclamation points and then began to use exclamation points for filling

out the rest of the passage.

During independent practice, students were given a passage from Chicken Little in which

they needed to fill out the rules of dialogue. As I walked around the classroom, I noticed the

students were able to fill out the rules of dialogue successfully. However, a few students had

questions about starting a new paragraph when a character speaks. With guidance and examples,

the students were able to identify each time a different character spoke. When the students re-

grouped as a class, they were able to identify each missing rule of dialogue from the passage. As

a closer, the students defined dialogue and identified the three rules of dialogue.

I felt this lesson was successful. The students were very interactive and were asking in-

depth questions about dialogue. Also, the students understood the rules of dialogue, were able to

point out the rules of dialogue, and also apply them to passages from Chicken Little. However,

there are a few things I would change if I taught this lesson again. I had the opportunity to

conference with Mrs. MacNamara after the lesson was taught to discuss my teaching strengths

and areas of need. One thing we noticed is that I should wait longer for the students’ responses,

and allow students more time to write down notes in their notebooks. I did not give every student

enough time to think about the questions being asked. Also, I would have been more specific

about the three good things good stories have. The students were naming important parts of

stories, and they seemed confused when we explained those parts were good but not the three we

were looking for.

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I felt the students should have come up to the board to fill out the passage during guided

practice. However, we filled out the passage as the students were called upon and informed us

where the missing dialogue should go. There was one part of the lesson in which the students

were filling out a passage as a class. During this part, I forgot to have the students identify one of

the rules of dialogue. However, the students were still able to identify the rule during

independent practice. I was disappointed this happened, but overall I was very happy how this

lesson went and felt it was a success.